Preface
My husband loves Dwarf Fortress, but his laptop is err... behind the times at best. It's just not capable of playing the game for very long without bogging down and becoming too clunky to be fun for him. So he steals my laptop or complains (with good reason, mind you) about how his desktop is in the garage until we get the house sold. There just wasn't room for both PCs in the office we have without making the room look small and crowded. Since my desktop has all of our financials and important paperwork I couldn't afford to store it indefinitely (I did offer to rip out its brains and frankenstein them into his computer, but that was a no-go).
Here's the big reason I want to do something special for him - we have a baby due in December and he feels really left out of the gifting this year because everything is for little one. I've always been generous with his gifts in the past because he never had a good Christmas/Birthday until he met my family (seriously - his family may have been poor, but there was an honest lack of effort as well). Bottom line is that I want something that will wow him and make up for the fact that I'm completely useless for several months pre-and-post birth.
What we're Upgrading
His current configuration is a Gen 1 Core i7 (1366/X58) with a mid-range Gigabyte mobo, 2gb DDR2 NVIDIA graphics card, 1TB WD Black HD, and 16gb x 1600 DDR3 Corsair RAM. He's got a huge 1000W PSU in a HAF 832 case. We don't overclock so it's all standard cooling at this time. This system was built just after the launch of the first core i7 - so four years or five?
My Questions to the Forum
-Processor - Ivy Bridge-E (2011/X79) or Haswell (1150/Z87)? We like intel, I've never had a problem - wouldn't know what to do with an AMD besides use it as a hat.
-Mobo - ASUS or Gigabyte or someone entirely different? I've used the both and had success, but if there's a newer, better company clue me in! It's been a while since we've built and I haven't been keeping up like I should have. I'm feeling a bit lost here!
-HD set up - Is SSD the shizz or should I still be using a standard HD? Are SSDs harder to install, causing any issues, etc?
-Case - the HAF has to go! As much as I love it but it's a gargantuan beast that is really freakin' loud. With a baby on the way I need something quiet that still maintains the airflow as I just can't see us liquid cooling anytime soon. Now extra heatsinks and fans... sure, I'm game.
-RAM - do I need to upgrade his RAM? Is there something significantly better? Should I just purchase more to upgrade him to 32gb or go whole hog and get him all new?
-PSU - I think I'm set with 1000W, right? This isn't going to be something that needs more than that?
-Graphics card - How graphics intensive is DF? I'd like to upgrade him to a DDR3 card, but will I need two or just one really good one? Any suggestions? NVIDIA or AMD? When we purchased I was told NVIDIA held the field, but I don't know if that's changed.
Budget
Don't have one. Seriously. I'm willing to bleed a little to make him feel special with this. Let's not go for a second mortgage, but I really do want something nice!
I know I'm forgetting things as I'm trying to type this before he wakes up. Most of all, I want this to be a surprise!